LOS ANGELES -Actor Robert Blake formed his own legal Dream Team yesterday as cops rifled through a mountain of clues -including tapes that murder victim Bonny Bakley made of talks with her husband.

Also yesterday, Bakley’s family and Blake struck a deal for the actor to fork over about $12,000 to pay for her body to be shipped back to her native New Jersey for burial, a family lawyer said.

Bakley’s body has been in a Los Angeles County coroner’s refrigeration unit since her shooting death May 4. The actor and her family have bickered ever since over funeral arrangements and who would pick up the tab.

“They’re getting closer to closure,” family lawyer Cary Goldstein said. “They were getting frustrated for a while, and were ready to throw up their hands.”

The deal marked a rare point of agreement between Blake and his slain wife’s relatives, who have stopped just short of accusing the former TV star of murder.

Cops have not named a suspect, but Blake isn’t taking any chances. He’s retained highly regarded L.A. defense lawyer Barry Levin to work with his primary criminal-defense lawyer, Harland Braun.

Levin showed up at Blake’s Studio City neighborhood and walked through the crime scene.

“I must remind you, in this country, we have a presumption of innocence,” Levin said. “There is no trial, there is no jury. Robert Blake is not a suspect. He didn’t commit this crime.”

Blake and his wife had dined at a neighborhood restaurant just before her murder. He has told cops he forgot the gun he carried for protection at the eatery, and left his wife in the car to retrieve it.

That’s when a gunman fired into Blake’s car, killing the mother of his 11-month-old daughter. In addition to searching Blake’s property, cops have also hauled away Bakley’s car.

Sources closes to the investigation told The Post that cops are going through a trunk full of tapes that Bakley secretly made of phone conversations she had with Blake.

A LAPD spokesman would not disclose what items were found inside Bakley’s car, and the content of the taped conversations was not known.

In recent days, Blake’s legal team has released other tapes Bakley made of her own telephone conversations -including with a friend in which she weighs the relative merits of both Blake and Christian Brando, son of Marlon Brando, as a husband and as the father of her child.

THE BAKLEY TAPES

Since late last week, actor Robert Blake’s legal team has leaked several audio takes of slain wife Bonny Lee Bakley discussing love, sex, celebrity, Robert Blake and Christian Brando. Here are some highlighted comments from Bonny Lee Bakley on:

CHILDHOOD DREAMS OF CELEBRITY: “It’s because I wanted to be that myself. You think, ‘I’ll show them (taunting childhood classmates). I’ll become a movie star.'”

LOVE VS. CAREER: “If I’d kept romance out of my life, it would have been possible (to be a star). But I would have had to be like Katherine Hepburn and it was too hard. I kept falling for someone.”

MARRYING INTO CELEBRITY: “When you can’t become it yourself, I figured well why not fall for a movie star instead of becoming one you know?”

WHY SHE SOUGHT CELEBRITY: “I like being around celebrities. It makes you feel better than other people.”

SWINDLING LONELY MEN: “It’s my business and if I want to fool guys in the mail saying I’m somebody else, what’s the difference?”

ROBERT BLAKE VS. CHRISTIAN BRANDO: “I thought he (Blake) was cute when he was younger. He wasn’t what I was looking for. I thought I was already in love with Christian . . . and then all of a sudden I fell for him (Blake).” ROBERT BLAKE’S AGE AND DETERIORATING GOOD LOOKS: “I started falling for him. I kind of wanted him, but kind of didn’t. I thought he was cute when he was younger but I didn’t know if I wanted him for the rest of his life. He’s going to get older and worse looking.”

WHY BLAKE WOULD BE A GOOD ROMANTIC TARGET: “I was thinking (Blake) is a better deal. He’s older than Christian (Brando) and he may not be around as long.”

WHY BLAKE WOULD BE ATTRACTED TO HER FOR REASONS OTHER THAN SEX: “For sex, he could go get a hooker. Why wouldn’t he do a Hugh Grant thing?”